Fernando Alonso won the Spanish Grand Prix from fifth on the grid in front of his adoring Spanish fans. The Spaniard had an amazing start, passing Kimi Raikkonen, Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton on the first lap. Alonso finally wrestled the lead away from pole-sitter Nico Rosberg on lap 13 with a DRS overtake into turn 1 and remained in the lead for the remainder of the race!
It was a good day for Ferrari, Alonso winning and Felipe Massa claiming a third place finish for the Maranello based team, a good showing from the Brazilian after starting from ninth on the grid! As good as Massa was today, he simply didn’t have enough pace to beat Lotus’ Kimi Raikkonen who finished the race in second despite dropping back to fifth place in the first lap. Raikkonen’s team mate Romain Grosjean wasn’t so fortunate suffering from a right rear suspension failure on lap 9.
The Red Bull drivers finished line astern in fourth and fifth, but really didn’t have an answer for Ferrari and the Lotus of Raikkonen’ pace, Red Bull really struggled with tyres, needing to take it easy to keep the tyres intact, the Pirelli tyre performance being a dominating factor in the race!
Mercedes, where did it all go wrong? Nico Rosberg held off Force India’s Paul di Resta to hold onto sixth place after starting from pole, 68 seconds off the leader. Lewis Hamilton had an even worse day to finish the race in 12th place after starting alongside Rosberg on the grid. Hamilton is definitely very downhearted right now with comments, like “Now, I’ve been overtaken by a Williams” and “I can’t go any slower”, reminiscent of some of his comments last season in the McLaren.
A solid drive from Paul di Resta to claim more points for himself and his Force India team. It was a lacklustre day for McLaren, finishing in eighth and ninth, Jenson Button leading Sergio Perez home, although I suspect that Perez was told to hold station with the radio message “Don’t damage your tyres passing Jenson”. The final point was claimed by STR’s Daniel Ricciardo who had a fighting race.
The biggest talking point was the Pirelli tyres and the massive degradation, some teams having to stop four times with delaminations during the race, Pirelli have gone too aggressive now. Drivers only being able to drive at 70% capacity, kinda makes a mockery of what F1 should stand for. I say bring back refueling and have harder wearing tyres, ditch the need to run both tyre compounds.
Top 10 finishing positions for the Spanish Grand Prix:
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1. Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) 1:39:16.596 2. Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus) +9.300 3. Felipe Massa (Ferrari) +26.000 4. Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) +38.200 5. Mark Webber (Red Bull) +47.900 |
6. Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) +68.000 7. Paul di Resta (Force India) +68.900 8. Jenson Button (McLaren) +79.500 9. Sergio Perez (McLaren) +81.700 10. Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso) +1 lap |